


Rekindled

by LittleRaven



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Study, Gen, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 14:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20083648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: Leia had burned for the New Republic.





	Rekindled

She’d barely met the girl. Maybe that was a good thing. Leia thought of Luke, far away in both body and soul. She couldn’t reach him; even now, map in hand, she couldn’t go. He’d left, as surely as her son had, and her husband after. She had work to do. So did Rey, now.

Willing, eager even. Bright, despite the fresh loss they’d both endured. Leia remembered seeing that before, the eyes determined, set. Dedicated. Luke had always been able to do what she could not; Rey might be able to do the same. Leia was short on hope. 

She could use someone else to bring it. She knew what she was good at: leading, speeches, holding things down. Holding them together while someone got themselves sorted out. There were times she wondered what it would’ve been like, to be the wandering soul with no responsibility but to the power inside her. Luke had thought she’d refused the discovery of it; Leia found it was something she’d already known, the strength she drew on to keep her on her course. She required nothing else of it, to live the life she had built in the shape of the space Alderaan had been. She had asked him if he would stay to rebuild the Republic, knowing the answer. Too much, to be asked to live another life. 

Perhaps Rey would find a way to live in this one, and drag Luke along with her. It might take a Jedi to bring out the Jedi, as Luke had done with Obi-Wan. They could do what she could not. She allowed her thoughts to hope they would again, ignoring her emptied heart. 

It was a touch, a tug, and one of the absences she’d spent years trying to grow into was filled. Leia didn’t have to reach out to feel it. He was there, reaching for her. It was a comfort she had once been used to provide for him; she permitted it, closed her eyes to the indulgence. She knew the moment for what it was. 

She gave Poe his command back. Then she set off to find Rey. 

Today they began again. The work continued and, Leia thought, perhaps it was in the nature of it to change. She had not imagined, as the girl she had been, that she would still be doing this at her age. She had not, Leia admitted to herself, left enough of her mind to spare for imagination; her energies had gone to fuel the fire behind the Rebellion, then the New Republic, to keep it always burning in the present. Now, the future called—she would need to count on its ability to keep itself alive. 

It was time, she decided, to let the Force be with her. 

Leia turned to Rey, the window of their ship spreading the night out between them. In the distance, the Millennium Falcon carried people living and fighting, looking towards the next sunrise. Here, she took Rey’s offered hand.


End file.
